05-07-2008, 09:05 AM
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 | Puritanboard Postgraduate | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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Originally Posted by matt.meisberger  Quote:
Originally Posted by py3ak Matt, two points. One is that reading the Scriptures is not parallel to mysticism, per Hodge's definition that you quoted. Notice that he conceives of mysticism as assuming that divine truth is revealed independently of the outward teaching of God's Word; but that is not opposed to private reading, but rather to an "inward light". If someone says, "I don't need to read the Scripture because God wakes me up at 4:17 a.m. to talk with me," that would be mysticism. | Sorry, I think I must have come across other than expected. I didn't understand Hodge to be opposed to private reading of scripture. I only inferred from Hodge that since the objective truth of scripture is learned through the rational understanding of it and that if you learn the truth of scripture directly from reading it or from reading others who have digested it, that either way you must learn it through rational understanding and the Holy Spirit is not limited to nor prone too applying the objective truth to your soul just because you read it from the pages of scripture. I didn't so much worry about being woken up at 4:17 it is just that I grew up in the type of church that people often say stuff like "this is what I think the passage means" or "this is what the holy spirit was telling me through this passage" and other mystic understandings rather than "this is what God was actually saying in this passage" My dispy semi-pelagian background would encourage me to read primarily the scriptures because I can't be nourished on what others have digested. I feel like I have been trying to reject this assertion and wonder if I might be going to far but I do know that reading the naked scriptures is not inherently mystic. |  Quote:
Originally Posted by py3ak is there a more straightforward way to arrive at a mastery of it then a consistent use of it, through personal reading and meditation, the use of such helps as one has, and the attendance on the public reading and preaching of God's word? | Quote: |
Originally Posted by Matt I guess I would answer that I believe there is a more straightforward way to arrive at its mastery for I have been under teaching of people that read the bible all the time and even have a substantial, if not majority, of it memorized and, upon reflection now that I am no longer semi-pelagian and dispensational, realize that they no more mastered the scriptures than a cook using a samuri sword to trim the fat off chicken. | Excellent point, Matt, and I have had the exact same experience. It's ironic that those in my old evanjellyish-charismatic circles who harped on the importance of reading the bible for oneself for X amount of time per day, and those who, without saying it in so many words, made me and many others labor under a heavy burden of what was required of us for correct personal piety, turn out themselves to not know their bibles very well at all. These same people, of course, always quoted Ephesians 4:11 to prove that the office of apostle is still around today, while at the same time asserting that our private scripture reading is the most important part of our Christian life, when the same verse says that it's through these officers that we're to be equipped.
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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics
This may explain the old adage about Baptists being Methodists with shoes, and Presbyterians being Baptists who can read. To round out the adage, Lutherans might qualify as Presbyterians who drink to excess, and Episcopalians as Lutherans who know when to say when. - D.G. Hart
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